I was trying to modify my theme on Saturday to add custom pages and installed and uninstalled a few plug-ins and since then various past posts will not load properly in Firefox. So far nothing I’ve tried to fix it will work. It isn’t Firefox — it’s happening on several computers. I restored the blog from a back-up and lost one post and a comment or two. I upgraded WordPress and my theme and the problem persists. I’ve got to get this fixed before writing more posts. I’m sorry.
Hot Gay Air
I am honored Sarjex gave me a place in the headlines in her parody of Hot Air as Leftie heads exploded over a CPAC-speaker being booed off the stage during an anti-gay rant.
Ironically, I’ve already covered the issue Sarjex featured that the discovery of a gay gene and a reliable test to determine if a fetus were gay would transform gay and lesbian attitudes about abortion.
And tonight, just as I was looking for one more thing to chuckle over before turning in for the night, way past my bedtime, I find that Sarjex is a conservative lesbian living in San Francisco! Well, well, well! Thank GOD we can apply everything we learned about coming out as lesbian or gay to our families, friends and colleagues to making the even more astonishing and displeasing announcement that we are fiscal conservatives!
Oh, and Sarjex totally nailed it — I DO love both Gov. Palin and power tools, indeed, any kind of gizmo.
H/T The Other McCain.
Why, yes, it IS naturally curly
In the 1960’s I had breast-length hair that I used to straighten, but since the early 1970’s I have allowed my hair to curl any way it wants. I hope the guy asking the following question decided to accept his natural curl, too:
see more Art of Trolling
Observations on the health care 'summit'
First, the best coverage of the White House health care “summit” at Blair House in Washington, D.C., today is on C-SPAN 3 because it shows the name cards of the speakers and sometimes a chyron identifying the speaker. Also, it does not show irrelevent messages and a crawl as second-best Fox News is doing. CNN and MSNBC have anchors and reporters who can’t follow the issue, so they are doing interviews supporting their narratives. (Bah! Humbug!)
Obama has only the vaguest grasp of health care policy, but he DOES know how to weave buzz words into speeches so long that it requires super human powers to continue to listen to him instead of praying for the sweet release of death.
Obama also seems to be getting cues from an earbud device and covers his mouth to speak back to the voices in his ear.
I do not have all day to follow this meeting, but Sen. Chuck Schumer made some remarks so ignorant of the healthcare process that I must address them. Schumer denounced doctors who wave at you at the hospital bed and then “charge you $4,000.”
You should GIVE THANKS for a doctor who puts his or her time into doing the real job of providing your care and DOES NOT get sucked into stroking your ego. Because that doctor may have had to get waked up in the night to change your meds or order new tests. And definitely that doctor just spent a good chunk of time reviewing your test results and nurses’ notes, rounding up specialists you need, discussing your care with the other doctors involved and fighting with your insurance company to get you the care you need.
Patients can be clingy and needy and if the doctor has to cut off their complaints that are NOT helping the doctor provide them the best care, they get insulted when the doctor has to cut them off. Nobody wins.
The next time your doctor walks by your door and just waves, smile and wave back. You didn’t see him or her hard at work on your behalf, but they were doing their job and deserve their fees.
P.S.
Conservatives should stop deluding themselves that there’s anything that will kill the fake healthcare reform legislation advocated by Obama/Reid/Pelosi short of Republicans taking back the House and Senate in November and the White House in 2012. That’s because the purpose of the legislation is NOT to provide healthcare reform but to transform our economy to socialism using the bait of greater security.
Our healthcare system does have real problems and it is one of the greatest mistakes of conservatives that they — um, we — did not take this issue away from Leftists by getting real healthcare reform done: tort reform, the ability to purchase insurance over state lines, uncoupling health insurance from employment, and so on. The way Leftists are able to keep this issue alive is by airing the real problems in a never-ending bait-and-switch where they promise their solutions will solve the problems without revealing that the real price is enslavement to a totalitarian government with a hopelessly stagnant economy, or by getting their true believers to consider that a reasonable price.
Update, 2/25/2010, Thurs., 1:36 PM, ET: If you don’t get C-SPAN3 on TV, you can watch it online at C-SPAN.org.
C-SPAN3 has three telephone lines for callers — Republican, Democrat and Independent — and at 1:30 pm, ET, gave time to a concern troll on the Republican line who claimed to be a Republican since the 1960’s. I doubt it. See HillBuzz’s latest post on recognizing concern trolls.
One of the worst proposals being floated in the Blair House summit is that doctors should be paid by results instead of the number of services they perform. NO! Since the Democrats also refuse to pass tort reform to lower the cost of malpractice insurance — which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in high-risk specialties like obstetrics — paying by results will increase the incentive for doctors to refuse patients with difficult or complex health problems. In addition, doctors have no control at all over whether their patients are compliant with their doctors’ orders, which means doctors have limited control over the results they can achieve through no fault of their own.
Obama’s arrogance and snideness are on full display in this meeting. However, they don’t seem to be cowing anyone and Fox News is reporting viewers are ticked off about it. Who could have predicted that members of Congress with vastly more experience with these kinds of meetings than Obama would be invulnerable to such paltry manipulations?
One of the delightful things about Fox’s coverage is that they are including the contributions on their blog and the Twittersphere. This is a watershed time in news coverage because Twitter and the blogosphere now make it a conversation with the viewers. For example, Jonah Goldberg just opined that this summit is only interesting to policy wonks and Fox said their blog was “lit up” with people disagreeing and saying they are riveted and consider it a great civics lesson. Hah!
My dear Sophia is now purring on the lap of God
My late life partner Margaret and I were living in a high-rise condo in Silver Spring in September 2000 when Sophia and her boyfriend, Ivan, came up to me in the parking lot. “Nice lady,” Ivan said, “we have just been abandoned and do not know what to do. Will you help us?”
I promised to give them a home, but they were gone when I came back with cat carriers and food. My neighbors and I were not able to capture them and their kittens until the week after Christmas. We found a home for the kittens that had arrived by then, and I kept Sophia and Ivan because their months outside had de-tamed them so much that they were too shy to be adoptable. Since they adored each other and did not bother my other cats, I welcomed them.
On Sunday evening the day after CPAC, I saw my dear kitty, Sophia, stretched full length on the back of the sofa. Her breathing was very labored. And I knew my dear kitty was dying.
I tried for hours to catch Sophia and failed, even after she ran into my bedroom for the night. I was passing out from sleep deprivation from attending CPAC, so I stroked her and prayed she would last the night. She did and in the morning I was able to pop her into a cat carrier. Our regular veterinarian couldn’t work her in, so I took her to one of our local animal ERs. The X-ray showed advanced heart failure. Death was very near. I blessed Sophia and explained to her what was happening and that she would be going to God. I put the “Hallelujah Chorus” on my cell phone’s speakers, so she would feel like she was being sung into heaven by angels. And I held her and comforted her as she died.
For those of you who feel inspired to do so, if you are willing to express your condolences with a donation (see the coffee cup illustration or the PayPal button), it would be extremely welcome, most consoling and VERY helpful.
Anchoress, attacking politicians through their children is wrong, period
I know I am late to the discussion of the “Family Guy” episode that took a shot at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin through a character with Down’s syndrome identifying herself as the “daughter of the governor of Alaska.” But I have to say my piece.
The dear Anchoress — I am never ironic or sarcastic when I use terms of endearment — went to great lengths to condone the scenes aimed at Gov. Palin through her son Trig, who has Down’s syndrome and is not quite two years old. She also chided Gov. Palin, and her oldest daughter, Bristol, who also is a mother, for springing to Trig’s defense.
I am shocked that I have to keep explaining the following point to conservatives: the families of our politicians are out of bounds, period. There is NO SUCH THING as a rationale for attacking a politician’s family in any way. They are civilians — non-combatants. It is against the rules of war.
The MAFIA does not attack rivals through their civilian family members. The MAFIA!
Gov. Palin ALONE, of ALL politicians, is expected to be gracious and/or silent when her children and husband are attacked by the Left. Then, regardless of how she responds, she is then attacked by everyone else. Basically, everyone thinks it is safe to attack Gov. Palin through her children. No, no, a thousand times, NO! We are entering the campaign season — we must not permit the tactic of getting at our candidates through their children to go unchecked and unpunished.
Instead, what conservatives must do is commit to protecting our politicians’ families. Making a big show at the beginning of such an enterprise saves untold labor later. So I suggest we vaporize anyone and everyone who even looks at our candidates’ children funny until the correlation between unacceptable behavior and immersion into a world of pain is clear to all and sundry.
We must protect our politicians children and families not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because our best candidates will leave public service and its marketplace of ideas, or never enter it, if we do not protect their loved ones. They simply cannot do this alone.
Additionally, there is something evil and corrupting about failing to stop abuse. It gives permission. And research suggests that the people witnessing abuse feel it as if it were being done to them. When no one stops the abuse and they cannot stop it, it creates feelings of powerlessness in the abused and correlating feelings of omnipotence in the abusers.
To give a specific example, some time in the 1980’s, my late life partner Margaret and I listened to the autobiography of Judy Carne, who was the “Sock it to me” actress on “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in,” which I watched when I was a teen. She would say, “Sock it to me” and then get doused with a bucket of water, or otherwise assaulted. In her book, Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside, she described how seeing her assaulted on the show made people feel safe — entitled, even — to throw water in her face everywhere she went. These constant assaults destroyed her life.
We cannot give permission to any form of assault on the children and families of our politicians. We must vaporize the people who assault the children and families of our politicians until they stop. This will be tough to do because nothing makes Lefties go psychotic faster than setting a boundary. But it must be done.
Live blogging Ann Coulter's CPAC Q and A
Ann Coulter is at CPAC and she just mocked Bill Nye the Science Guy’s claim that one of the things proving anthropogenic global warming is that lots of young people believe in it, “On that basis I can prove beer is the greatest beverage ever invented!”
To which Moe Lane said to me, “But it is!”
Ann: “If Ron Paul says it and it doesn’t have to do with foreign policy, then I agree.”
And more Ann: “If you don’t leave liberals in a sputtering rage, you’re not doing it right.”
Question: “Have you ever dated a liberal before?”
Ann: “They weren’t liberal for long.”
Hot guy booed from stage for anti-gay rant at … CPAC?
Smokin’ hot dude Ryan Sorba had barely launched into an anti-gay rant at CPAC around 6 pm, ET, Friday evening when the audience began to boo. And boo and boo and boo. Astonished but defiant, Sorba continued his rant and began to remove articles of clothing until he was stripped down to just a tight leopard print bikini. Sorba then struck three or four muscleman poses in an effort to regain the audience’s support before finally fleeing the stage shouting, “This is SO bogus! This is discrimination! When Carrie Prejean did this, SHE got a book deal!”
Um, no, wait — that’s not quite how it happened.
Here’s the story from Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades, Allahpundit at Hot Air, and Tammy freakin’ Bruce who asks a very reasonable question: “What was he doing there in the first place?”
Gabriel links John Aravosis at Americablog, but I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning, so I cannot resist sharing this delicious whiff:
When conservatives are standing up for gays, and Democrats treat us like we are an embarrassment, there’s a problem.
(snip) … when the Republicans increasingly say the right things, like repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell now, and even supporting marriage, and all the Democrats show is political homophobia, gays get the message.
Some gays and lesbians will vote for Democrats regardless of how blatantly the Obama administration and the Democratic party back away from their promises to repeal DADT, repeal DOMA, and pass ENDA. Regardless of how clear it is that the White House will appoint an openly gay cabinet member or an openly gay Supreme Court justice when hell freezes over. But I think, come November, and come many more Novembers in the future, a lot of gays and lesbians, are going to realize that we’re talking about our lives, rather than our right to attend a cocktail party. And when it comes to our lives, and voting for someone who treats us with the same kind of shame every single one of us grew up with, I think you’re going to see an increasing number of gay Americans distancing themselves from the Democratic party with their donations and their votes. They may not vote Republican, nor should they — they simply may not vote at all.
To the White House, the DNC, and our leadership in Congress: You are messing with people’s lives, and we know it. And the day that an anti-gay bigot gets booed at CPAC, you all better start being very afraid.
I don’t think Mr. Aravosis quite grasps the Obama modus operandi, though. Obama and his minions are not going to be afraid. I predict they will re-double their efforts to demonize the Right to make homosexuals confused and terrified of leaving the plantation.
And I notice that Mr. Aravosis did not have sense enough to make an itemized call to action, or set any deadlines, or renew his campaign for gays and lesbians to stop donating money to the Democrats.
But perhaps Mr. Aravosis will come to his senses soon. After all, down is up, and up is down — Darth Cheney is the nation’s most powerful advocate for homosexual equality and an anti-gay rant at CPAC was booed by so many audience members that the speaker fled the stage.
Update, 2/20/2010, Sat.: On my way down I-95 to CPAC this morning from northeastern Maryland to Washington, D.C., it occurred to me that not all my dear gentle readers know that one of the commonest ways some homosexuals hide that they are leading a double life — publicly straight, gay on the down low — is to be an anti-gay activist. One example is the former member of Congress for my district in Maryland, Bob Bauman, who lost to Roy Dyson on account of finally getting caught with a live boy. (I covered that election night from Dyson’s gathering for the Harford Democrat.)
And you know what? Hot young Mr. Sorba DOES rather trip the gaydar.
Dan Collins, altered mental status
Dear Dan Collins of POWIP (Piece of Work in Progress) was admitted to the hospital Friday morning with low blood pressure and altered mental status. The last update from Enoch at POWIP was around 4 pm when Dan was oriented but speaking “like a moderate drunk.”
Please pray for Dan and his family, and for his doctors to make the correct diagnosis this time and to have an effective treatment.
(I was going to write about the anti-gay kid getting booed off the stage Friday evening at CPAC, but this is more important and I’ll write about that tomorrow. At the time I was sitting with a group of bloggers in the Marriott-Wardman’s bar — Little Miss Attila, Fausta, Obi’s Sister, Baldilocks and Babalu when a Danish blogger named Eric joined us and told us about it.)
I'm an official CPAC blogger, y'all
When I attended CPAC for the first time last year, I had only been blogging about seven weeks and I had only been a fiscal conservative for about five months. A post by Stacy McCain on “How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in a Year” led to my writing a post about Little Miss Attila and commenting at her site. She was intrigued and invited me to coffee at CPAC, which gave me the courage to sign up for all three days and attend. Attila also introduced me to Stacy at CPAC and vouched for his character. I am so very grateful to both of them for their kindness and support this past year. And I am looking forward to taking Attila out to dinner to have a nice chat and thank her. Stacy lives closer, so I’ll have the opportunity to buy him a beer another time.
Update, 2/16/2010, Tues.: Holy cow! Obi’s Sister has the most awesome link round-up of official bloggers for CPAC 2010! She was wonderful to me at CPAC last year and it will be a joy to see her again this year and talk heirloom tomatoes.